No one expects the Spanish Inquisition...
For trenchant analysis of international affairs you can always rely on the National Post. Okay, trenchant analysis of international affairs or juvenile "calls to action". Err, trenchant analysis of international affairs or juvenile "calls to action", or painful to watch fawning of the powers that be. Hmmm, trenchant analysis of international affairs, or juvenile "calls to action", or painful to watch fawning of the powers that be, or an almost ironic lack of forethough and hindsight.
Today, Cardinal Fang focusses on "trenchant analysis of international affairs" - fetch the comfy chair!
As we've discussed in these pages before, the current game playing out between Iran and the West exposes an economic weakness that might have dire consequences for the United States and for the rest of us. In fact, many writers that I have shamelessly plagiarized in previous scribblings have indicated that the economic game, for all of its lack of publicity, might in fact be the real deal and the nuclear standoff currently making the news is but its public face.
However, in today's editorial in the National Pusillanimous we see that, as usual, they play to those that don't actually open the paper and call for Iran to "be brought to heel" by the international community for threatening the US with "harm and pain". As discussed in the articles cited above, "harm and pain" might actually mean something other than "we're going to put a nuke into a shipping container for export". It might in fact, mean something more like "we're going to pull your economic pants down and expose your debt to the capricious winds of the financial markets". (Poetic, what?)
Either one is bad news, but the former would just rain pain down upon the head of Iranians while the latter Americans. Is it safe to assume that the American "negotiators" assume the Iranians are idiots, then?
This fine piece of scholarship does, in fact end with a call to arms:
Today, Cardinal Fang focusses on "trenchant analysis of international affairs" - fetch the comfy chair!
As we've discussed in these pages before, the current game playing out between Iran and the West exposes an economic weakness that might have dire consequences for the United States and for the rest of us. In fact, many writers that I have shamelessly plagiarized in previous scribblings have indicated that the economic game, for all of its lack of publicity, might in fact be the real deal and the nuclear standoff currently making the news is but its public face.
However, in today's editorial in the National Pusillanimous we see that, as usual, they play to those that don't actually open the paper and call for Iran to "be brought to heel" by the international community for threatening the US with "harm and pain". As discussed in the articles cited above, "harm and pain" might actually mean something other than "we're going to put a nuke into a shipping container for export". It might in fact, mean something more like "we're going to pull your economic pants down and expose your debt to the capricious winds of the financial markets". (Poetic, what?)
Either one is bad news, but the former would just rain pain down upon the head of Iranians while the latter Americans. Is it safe to assume that the American "negotiators" assume the Iranians are idiots, then?
This fine piece of scholarship does, in fact end with a call to arms:
Let us hope the members of the Security Council show more backbone. If the civilized world has this much trouble facing up to Tehran now, one can only imagine what sort of leverage the rogue nation will have once it finally gets the bomb.
Indeed, one can only imagine.
One can also imagine what might have happened if George Bush hadn't slammed shut every diplomatic door that he could on Iran after the re-election of the reformist president Mohammad Khatami in 2001, culminating with naming it among his now-mythical axis of evil in that cluster-fuck of a State of the Union address.
Indeed, one can only imagine.
Well, I note on slate.com that even Christopher Hitchens has conceded that military action against Iran is impossible, and he's calling for Bush to use diplomatic measures, so everything will depend on Bush's financial and diplomatic acumen - we're all doomed...
Posted by
Dan |
Fri Mar 10, 02:05:00 PM
Actually, there's one other thing Iran could do - they've got partial control of the Strait of Hormuz, and 90% of the oil traffic for the Persian Gulf pass through there
Posted by
Dan |
Sat Mar 11, 09:35:00 PM
That is a very dangerous little piece of water, and possibly the West's single biggest liability in case of a war.
Posted by
kevvyd |
Sun Mar 12, 05:43:00 PM
In point of fact, if you have a boat capable of mine laying they're all nasty stretches of water. Just ask Libya, who mined the Red sea just to prove that they could. Add piracy, or what can be claimed to be piracy to the mix and Hormuz and the Straights of Bab-el-Mendez ( both great natural choke points) and Iran has a lot of options that the US would rather they didn't.
Posted by
Anonymous |
Mon Mar 13, 01:09:00 PM